Greenwood Community Charcoal Project

Greenwood Community Charcoal Project is an ongoing project to conserve and manage woodland within Nottinghamshire. The aim is to manage the woodland in a sustainable way by providing a renewable source of timber and increase both the plant and animal species within the wood.

Over 90 percent of charcoal used in the UK is imported, much of this involves the destruction of rainforests and mangrove swamps. Locally produced charcoal is an alternative to this and further helps the environment by reducing the transport emissions from importation.

Local people are involved in the project and volunteers make most of the charcoal. The miniature kiln can often be seen at shows and festivals around the county demonstrating the ancient art of charcoal making to the public.

Charcoal burning can be traced back to the Bronze Age. There are several stages in the production of charcoal; first the trees are felled, cut to size and left to dry out. The kiln is stacked with wood that is burnt with a limited air supply to produce charcoal. When the process is completed and the kiln has cooled down, the charcoal is sorted and bagged to be sold as Friar Tuck’s Charcoal. The burning process usually takes place in the wood where the timber is felled, which allows one to see the complete cycle of woodland management. The short film below shows this process and some of the volunteers involved.

Transcript of film

Narrator
The Greenwood Community Charcoal Project has one main aim, which is to manage neglected local woodland in a sustainable way, often by removing non-native species and re-establishing traditional Coppice Cycle management. This has the effect of improving conditions in the woodland for wildlife, improving the biodiversity and benefitting the local landscape.
The Project produces Barbecue Charcoal from what would normally be considered waste timber, such as small branchwood, and is a very high quality product.
This is reasonably priced to compete with that available from supermarket chains and garages, which is normally sourced from tropical rainforests and man-groves that are not always managed in a sustainable or suitable way, or with any consideration for their wildlife.
The project is a partnership between various agencies and groups such as Nottinghamshire County Council, The Greenwood and Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. But in practice the woodland work and charcoal production is undertaken by a group of dedicated volunteers with occasional involvement of community groups.

First man
Yeah, what we’re doing here is using waste timber just to, sort of, raise the stack of wood that we’re going to be burning and turning into charcoal up off the ground. And that provides a conduit for air to enter the bottom of the kiln and complete the charcoalling process basically. It might look a bit of a mess but again it’s essentially waste wood and we’re just designing the stack properly so it burns fully.

Second man
Essentially what we’re really doing is cooking the wood and its driving all the moisture off and most of this white smoke you can see behind me is mostly steam.

We’re trying to burn it with a limited amount of oxygen which is why we put the lid on and if you can see round the bottom there, we’ll bank that up further with earth and that in a minute and there’ll be three chimneys. There’s six vents around the bottom there and there’ll be a chimney opposite a vent to draw the air in.

First man
The sand’s just to seal the lids; the smoke and steam escaping round the edge.

First man
Basically, what we’re doing now is changing the chimneys round and swapping the air vents with the chimneys so air will actually enter the kiln at different locations and it’ll evenly burn the charcoal inside.

Narrator
The project has an important role in education and involving local communities, helping them understand how the traditional management techniques and practices can be re-established to benefit local woods and landscapes.

Third man
This lad, if you knew him when he first started on this job and knowing him now, you wouldn’t think he was the same person.

Interviewer
Done him a lot of good has it?

Third man
Its done him world of good, yeah.

Interviewer
Why? What did he used to be like? Just shy?

Third man
That’s right, very shy and yeah, he was, wont yer!
…………[laughter]…………….

Interviewer
Well, what about you? I mean, what do you get? Y’know.

Third man
Satisfaction, and working with a nice gang.

Fourth man
Its true, we get satisfaction at the end of the day, we all come together at the end of the day, we really do

Third man
We do don’t we?

Fourth man
We really do get on.

Third man
Brilliant.

Fourth man
All of us do.

Third man
It’s a brilliant gang, yeah.